Critical Minerals

[Zafer]

Please share your posts in this thread reserved for the discussion of critical minerals

The definition of critical minerals or materials vary from nation to nation; it is practically materials not widely available but made by very few suppliers. These materials are usually needed in high technology or military applications.

Particularly materials used in

• High quality magnets used in FPV drones, other small drones, electric vehicles and in missile maneuvering motors
• High quality batteries
• Super alloys

These minerals or materials maybe in several states in the supply chain

• Reserves unexplored
• Reserves known
• Ores being mined
• Ores refined to an intermediate mineral
• Minerals refined to a directly usable state (like sponge form for titanium)
• Minerals converted to ingots
• Minerals converted to alloys
• Alloys converted to blank forms used in industries, like sheets, bars, discs (like for turbineblisks), powder for additive manufacturing

A sub category of critical materials is defined as Rare Earth Minerals which consist of 17 minerals that are only mined and refined by a few nations.

China practically dominates the world market for most of these minerals.

Critical raw materials - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Rare-earth element - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Zafer]

Antimony - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Antimony is what makes soft lead bullets harder. Your 9mm bullet has 5-28 % antimony in it. A hard cast lead bullet if also heat treated can penetrate a bear's hard scull while ordinary solf bullets won't. China started sanctioning antimony starting a few months ago.